I’d like your thoughts on when and why you use notes, headings, and bullets.
In my mind, they are kind of all a different approach to the same problem: organizing data. Each has its own pro and con. But unfortunately a big friction point that I keep encountering when I write something in Obsidian is I keep asking myself “Should I use a bullet, heading, or separate note?” Here are the pros and cons I see:
Notes
+: Notes are 1st class citizens w/in Obsidian.
+: Notes are visible w/in the graph view
-: Sometimes I want to see everything together in one page. this doesn’t work well if they’re all in separate notes.
-: Doesn’t show in outline view.
(I understand. How would separate notes show in an outline view? Doesn’t make sense, especially since notes are a non-hierarchical, many to one relationship. I’m just saying that, if you’re looking in an Outline view, and are trying to see relationships to other notes, then you have to switch to graph view).
Headings
+: Shows up in the outline view
+: collapsible
-: Doesn’t show in graph view
-: Sometimes Headings get filled with so much content that they feel like they need to graduate to a separate note.
-: Bullets are better at showing hierarchy than headings. It’s easier to see an indent then a slightly different size font.
Bullets
+: Collapsible
-: Does not show up in Outline view (if only🙏🏻)
-: Doesn’t show in graph view
There are a few tools that I’ve found that make it easier to convert between these 3 but it could be better:
Converts sections of notes (e.g. Headings) into separate notes and automatically adds backlinks
Embed notes into other notes
Embed headings into other notes
Links to headings
Links to blocks
Please let me know if you find any other tools that make it easier to switch between the three. Especially right now, I don’t have an easy way to convert back and forth between bullets and headings.
I’m using headings extensively because I can easily reorder them via the outline and develop them as topics with subheadings being related stuff or dependencies that can evolve to H1/notes if big enough. Bullets (timestamped) help me in a History section but sometimes it’s necessary to summarize or integrate better into the topics as a coherent paragraph instead of a lot of bullets. Tasks for next actions and important stuff that needs tracking, scheduling or dependencies (before/after based on Tasks plugin)
I’m also interested, did you find something better than Heading Shifter plugin and Note Extractor? HSP removes the hyphen if the bullet but doesn’t remove the pound signs of headings.
To remove heading I use “Apply Heading 0” from Heading Shifter.
To convert to bullet I use “Toggle bullet list” from Obsidian. This has solved my problem.
If you want something even easier I recommend Editing Toolbar plugin by Cuman, however be aware that sometimes it conflicts with mobile or other plugins.
My take on this is that they complement each other. It is not a question of which is better but when to use each of the 3.
I like how @DRRO is using headings. It is at the middle level and can be expanded in more details with subheadings or promoted to a new note if it becomes its own topic.
And bullets are used for other reason than hierarchy, which is also perfectly fine.
In my opinion, you won’t find a universal solution to your data organisation problem.
What will help is to create some sort of rules or guidelines as to when you should create a note vs a heading vs a bullet. In your guidelines you can also consider how a note can evolve into many headings and subheadings and when 3 paragraphs should become a note.
